Our Story: Toni Snydmiller

I am an Albertan woman and I work in the oilfield. I work with men, good men, polite men, family men. Not once have I been concerned about their behaviour toward me. I only get treated with respect. Many of my family work in the oilfield as well. We’ve been an oilfield family for a couple generations. We’ve grown up watching our daddies, brothers, and uncles drive away as they leave for another hitch out in the bush. They come home weeks later…dirty, exhausted and worn out. They rest a few days, spend a short time with us and then leave us again. Life goes on in hitches. All to ensure their families…their children, have a good life.

I’ve seen first-hand what these oilfield people do on a
daily basis. I see the sweat and the pain and the hard physical labor they do
every day. I’m not talking 9-to-5 here, I’m talking 12+ hours a day outside, in
both +30° and –30° weather. I’ve been on drilling rigs, service rigs, fracs,
coil jobs, pipeline construction, facility construction and lease construction.
Every single one of these jobs includes gruelling physical labour. It takes a
different breed of person to do it. I challenge anyone who thinks they have it
tough elsewhere to try this out. I’d bet money they wouldn’t last a day.

As for me? I’m not exactly on the front lines, I’m a
paramedic, it’s my job to sit and watch the others work hard. Right now I’m
sketching and learning Spanish. Honestly, it’s like I get paid to be bored,
because when I’m busy it means something has gone wrong and someone’s hurt, and
usually out here, if someone’s hurt it’s probably bad. So, I like to stay
bored. It means the men and women I work with, whom I have come to love and
respect, are all ok. I’m so thankful that with the high safety standards in
today’s oilfield, serious incidents are very rare.

Like those workers, I live in a camp away from my family
and friends and my 14-year-old son. Yes, I live with 185 men and a handful of
women without issues! I grind out the days, day after day and lean on my little
family-like crew when the loneliness gets too much. It’s very easy to let the
isolation get to you. Especially when the locations we are on have no cell
service. Sometimes I don’t talk to my son for days because of it. Even camp
often doesn’t have sufficient cell or wifi
service. On a good day, when I get back to camp I can call home. I can also
browse through my Facebook. I see all sorts of crap being spread around, and
the sad thing is, people believe it. The people protesting pipelines don’t have
a clue…they don’t research the truth…they blindly follow and will believe
anything the news vomits out. Mostly, it’s disinformation spread for a
political agenda under the guise of environmental concern. There are pipelines
that have been flowing throughout Canada since the ’50s without incident and
somehow our higher quality, more advanced methods today will fail?

Those in coastal BC and Québec don’t have a clue that
they’ve been manipulated by US and Liberal interests. They protest something
that actually helps and maintains the rest of the country. They don’t want to
hear the truth. It makes sense though, for like the famous Mark Twain quote
going around Facebook says…. “It’s easier to fool people than to convince
them that they’ve been fooled.”

Alberta and its oilfield has largely been the breadwinner
of the Canadian provinces. We’re paying billions in equalization payments to
other provinces who simply don’t have the resources. I think this is
detrimental as a whole. This doesn’t give other provinces any incentive to
become independent or to find ways to grow their own economies. Why would they
when Alberta continually foots the bill? Their economies falter and Alberta’s
people have always saved the day. I wonder how much of Québec’s 1.7 billion
dollar surplus is Alberta’s contribution. I think their surplus should be added
to the equalization don’t you? They’re flying above the hole, while Alberta
sinks into it.

Here are a couple questions…Will Alberta still be
responsible for the equalization payments when our economy falters further?
Will we get the help we’ve always given, back? Seriously, how? The other
provinces depend on us so heavily. They fight the pipelines and oilfield
development with misguided fervour, putting us and our livelihoods in great
peril. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Alberta and its oilfield not only supports the rest of
Canada with equalization payments, we support it with much more than that. We
employ thousands of people from other provinces who come here to make a living
because as I said above, their provinces don’t have the work. Our oilfield
provides steady income for the communities we work near. Once again, there’s no
concern for the women there as our simple Prime Minister implied. We stay in
their hotels and buy products and services in these communities. Some
communities exist simply because oilfield workers needed it. When I was working
outside of the oilfield, I owned a business where my clientele was largely from
the oilfield and not once was I worried for my safety with those workers being
around. I was however concerned when the oilfield hit lows. It affected my
business drastically; so much so that I eventually closed the doors.

A number of Alberta’s oilfield workers invest in real
estate in other provinces like BC. Many vacation in other provinces providing
steady tourism income that many of their communities have come to depend on. Many
workers from the East spend their income in their home provinces. The East has
benefitted greatly from Alberta in many ways and still they turn a blind eye to
our plight. They continue to bite the hand that is now stretched out for a
helping hand up.

I see a focus in the East on a couple thousand people
losing their jobs with the closure of a GM plant in Oshawa, Ontario. Even the
Prime Minister expresses his disappointment about this. However, he hasn’t said
anything about the 100,000+ jobs lost in Alberta’s floundering oilfield. How do
we make you all see that without those oilfield jobs everyone in Canada
suffers. I can’t believe how obtuse the rest of Canada has become.

I see nothing but strife ahead and I see suicide rates
going up as more and more Albertans lose their employment, their homes, their
families and lose their dignity. I see desperation and fear in the eyes of
those lucky enough to still be working in such an uncertain place.

We need to work together as a country…united to keep us
even on the world stage. For if we don’t, the failure of Alberta most certainly
means the eventual failure of Canada.

I’m considered a professional by my peers in the departments that I excel in be it senior consultant/inspector, project management, construction manager, procurement, environmental, or Aboriginal relations. I do these projects with multiple companies and […]